Samsung Electronics unveiled its LPDDR5X-PIM chip at Hot Chips 2026, held at Stanford: low-power memory with compute logic built directly into the DRAM, which in tests with Llama 3.1 nearly tripled inference performance versus conventional LPDDR5X memory, using the same physical packaging.
PIM (Processing-in-Memory) is a design that runs certain compute operations directly inside the memory chip itself, instead of constantly moving data between memory and the processor or AI accelerator. That data movement — not the compute itself — is one of the biggest energy and speed bottlenecks in AI workloads. According to Samsung, LPDDR5X-PIM delivers 614 GB per second of bandwidth for PIM operations, eight times more than conventional LPDDR5X's 76.8 GB per second.
In tests reported by Samsung and confirmed by trade outlets like Tom's Hardware and ServeTheHome, running Llama 3.1 on LPDDR5X-PIM raised throughput from 27 to 81.3 tokens per second — roughly a 3x improvement — and cut task completion time from 12.3 to 5.4 seconds. The key competitive edge is that the chip uses the same 561-ball packaging as standard LPDDR5X, allowing it to directly replace it in existing systems without redesigning the board or device.
Carlos Montiel is an enterprise AI solutions architect. He implements LLMs, Agents, RAG, and orchestrators for companies across Guatemala and Latin America. Reach out for a consultation.
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